Iraq

This week has seen confirmation that social mobility has stagnated, that the economic recovery is dangerously anaemic and that peace in Northern Ireland is threatened. Yet a conflict that was declared won nearly 7 years ago has been ever present on the frontpages. Bagehot is not at all surprised that the Iraq war remains definitive: ‘There is one way in which, despite the inquiry, Iraq has come to seem a less definitive issue: in Mr Brown’s handling of the public finances, it has a rival for the status of Labour’s worst mistake. Yet Iraq remains the most important single decision the government has made. Even taking a generous view of its behaviour—that it was cavalier and naive, rather than actively mendacious—the war remains an enormous stain.

Yesterday, I wrote that Jack Straw’s savagery in response to Goldsmith’s original advice bespoke of personal animosity. That may well be so, but Goldsmith’s testimony reveals that he was long convinced of his initial advice’s validity. Blair was exasperated with his friend’s stubbornness: “your advice is your advice,” he said pointedly. Yet eventually Goldsmith changed his mind. Why? Well plainly the government wanted him to because they thought he was wrong. Chronology is important here. Goldsmith wrote a note to Blair dated 12 January 2003 (three months before the invasion) reiterating his objections. Later in the month and at someone else’s suggestion, Goldsmith met Greenstock, who wanted to put the Attorney General right.

Proof positive that Brown listens, sometimes at any rate. The Prime Minister will give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry before the election. Chilcot has been resolute in his wish to keep politics out of the probe, which suggests that No.10 may have put in a call following the mounting clamour for Brown to appear. Brown is something of master in expressing defiance with a single line: “I have nothing to hide,” he averred on Wednesday. Might this sudden decision prove to be, as Sir Humphrey might have said, courageous? As Daniel Korski noted two weeks back: 'Brown’s role in the Iraq War, not that of Blair, that is the most obscure part of Britain’s modern history. As chancellor, Brown was the second most powerful man in government. He held the purse strings.

Predictably, insurgency in Iraq has intensified as the March elections near; its scale and frequency was not predicted. Alastair Campbell beamed as a benevolent Uncle when talking about Iraq on Tuesday but Coalition diplomats fear for the democracy’s future.  British ambassador to Baghdad, John Jenkins, told the Chilcot inquiry: “Iraq faces a real possibility of a military coup...Although I think where we are at the moment is much better than where we thought it was going be back in  2004-05 you only need look at the history of Iraq to understand that a realistic threat still exists.

David Miliband lacks the gumption to play Brutus, but does Geoff Hoon? The Sunday Times has obtained correspondence between Hoon, Brown and Blair illustrating that the then Chancellor overturned Treasury assurances that the MoD would receive additional funds for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown wrote: “I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of Defence to move resources between cash and non-cash.” Once again we see the (supposedly) miserly Chancellor holding Blair to ransom at any opportunity, regardless of the consequences. Whilst Brown is a spectre of a Prime Minister, he was anything but as Chancellor.

Labour lost the first week of the long election campaign. The Hoon and Hewitt plot and the late and tepid endorsements of Brown from key members of the Cabinet have highlighted the divisions within the Labour party. Hoon and Hewitt were right that stories about these decisions will not go away. They will run and run right up to polling day. The weekend papers will also not be good for Labour. To compound Labour’s woes, it looks like the big political story of early next week will be Alastair Campbell’s testimony to the Iraq inquiry, which threatens to dredge up memories of spin and Iraq. It should be remembered, though, that Campbell is a formidable performer and could come out of this appearance far better than expected.

It has taken eight years, but Tony Blair has finally leveled with the British public and admitted that the WMD thing didn’t really matter: he wanted to depose Saddam Hussein anyway. That's what he has said in a BBC interview, presumably to pre-empt his appearance before the Chilcot inquiry. His chosen confessor: Fern Britton. His medium: BBC1 on Sunday. It has been trailed to the newspapers, including tomorrow’s Times. As it says: "He said it was the 'threat' that Saddam presented to the region that was uppermost in his mind. The development of weapons of mass destruction was one aspect of that threat. Mr Blair said that there had been 12 years of the United Nations going 'to and fro' on the subject, and he noted that Saddam had used chemical weapons on his own people.